Birmingham searches for the digital family

A Birmingham family will soon begin a year-long experiment to demonstrate the difference digital technology can make to everyday life.

Digital Birmingham, the organisation charged with ensuring the benefits of digital technologies can be experienced by all in the city, has joined forces with the Birmingham Mail paper to launch the search for Birmingham's digital family.

The initiative is supported by BT, which is providing a range of equipment for the winning family to use throughout their digital test.

They will be invited to make the most out of BT broadband, BT Vision digital TV, wireless connectivity, security software, and the latest telephones and webcams, to learn and develop their skills and teach other family members along the way.

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Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 6th Nov 2006 21:31 UTC

"Just as extensions make Firefox better, so do plug-ins add extra goodness to Windows XP Media Center Edition. For the uninitiated, MCE provides DVR and other multimedia features wrapped in an attractive 10-foot interface. Armed with a couch and a remote, you can record TV shows, pause live TV, view photo slideshows, listen to your music collection, tune in FM radio stations, and so on. I am unabashedly in love with MCE. It's the one Microsoft product I consider just about perfect, which is why it's the heart of my home entertainment system. With these eight plugs-ins, most of which are free, you can trick out your MCE PC like never before." .


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2008 CABLE SHOW: McSlarrow Sees Successful DTV Transition

NEW ORLEANS—When the cable industry holds its 2009 convention in Washington, D.C., TV stations' transition to digital will be over and cable operators will have played a key role in the success of that effort, National Cable & Telecommunications Association president Kyle McSlarrow said Sunday.

"I am confident our industry will have played a key role in its success…not simply because we stepped up to help with a $200 million consumer education campaign…but because we are working constructively with broadcasters, government agencies and other stakeholders to ensure its success," McSlarrow said in a keynote address at his industry's annual convention.

All full-power TV stations must turn off their analog signals on Feb. 17, 2009. Cable homes with analog TV sets not connected to the pay-TV service need to take action to prevent those sets from going dark.


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Low-priced alternative to cable

If you're fed up with cable or satellite TV service, you may have another, potentially cheaper choice in the next few years, thanks to a new start-up.

Belmont, Calif.-based Sezmi plans to offer a fairly standard TV lineup with a combination of broadcast, standard cable and premium channels along with Internet-based video.

But it's the way the company plans to distribute its offerings that is unusual and could make it cheaper. It will partner with local TV stations to serve up much of the content, and use consumers' existing high-speed Internet connections to deliver the rest.

That means Sezmi won't have to launch any new satellites or roll out any new cables, both of which can cost millions or even billions of dollars. Without those and other overhead costs, the company thinks it can roll out its service quickly and charge customers half what they would pay for cable or satellite services.


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Open Your Eyes to a Brilliant Home Theatre Experience With the New BRAVIA V4000 Series

The sleek, exquisitely designed BRAVIA(TM) V4000 series LCD TV makes a bigger, better home cinema experience even more accessible. This feature-packed television delivers exhilarating Full HD picture quality and seamless connectivity that's sure to excite home theatre fans.

The stylish BRAVIA V4000 series is available initially in three screen sizes: 40-inch, 46-inch and 52-inch. Other screen sizes will be available from later this year.

The BRAVIA(TM) 4000 series features elegant, understated looks inspired by Sony's innovative draw the LINE design concept. A sophisticated evolution from previous-generation TV designs, this minimalist philosophy accentuates the beautiful HD pictures being displayed without dominating your living space -- even at larger screen sizes.

Featuring an integrated DVB-C/DVB-T tuner*, the V4000 complements a 1080p Full HD LCD panel with an array of advanced signal processing technologies by Sony.


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Macrovision's TV Guide and Sunflower Broadband Collaborate on Set-Top Box Clickstream Measurement

Macrovision Solutions Corporation (NASDAQ:MVSND) and leading independent cable operator Sunflower Broadband today announced the planned deployment of a set-top box clickstream measurement solution for its TV Guide Interactive(R) i-Guide(TM), one of the cable industry's most widely-deployed interactive programming guides (IPG). The collaboration marks the first planned clickstream deployment for Macrovision(R) and Sunflower Broadband(TM) to collect valuable IPG usage data that can be used to make consumers' television experience more enjoyable.

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Digital TV Conversion Conversation

Fort Wayne, IN (Indiana's NewsCenter) -- Nine months from Saturday, television as we know it will change.You may have seen public service announcements featuring the four general managers of TV stations in Fort Wayne.The spot is part of a national awareness campaign about the conversion to digital television.Jerry Giesler\Indiana's NewsCenter GM: " This is the biggest sea change that has occurred in tv viewing habits since we went to color."Indiana's NewsCenter already broadcasts a digital signal, alongside the regular analog one.But Congress has mandated that next February, all TV stations must exclusively broadcast a digital signal, to free up the analog signals for emergency responders to use.If you have cable, satellite, or Verizon Fios, you won't notice a difference.But if you still use an antenna to watch TV, like thousands of people in northeast Indiana do, you'll have to buy a converter box to be able to get the new digital signal.Coupons for the boxes are available on the internet and through the mail.And people are getting the message.Jerry Giesler\Indiana's NewsCenter GM: " As I check the websites, thousands and thousands of people from northeastern Indiana are applying for certificates that give them a discount on converter boxes.



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